


The Commencement of the High Commander

by Eridell



Category: Borderlands
Genre: And Gaige totes enabling her, Brotp, Dark Comedy, Deathtrap is a butler wut, Minor Violence, Never insult fashion, Tea Party, Tina being a little shit, Tumblr Ask Box Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-21
Updated: 2013-06-21
Packaged: 2017-12-15 17:28:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/852123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eridell/pseuds/Eridell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tiny Tina takes it upon herself to throw Gaige a tea party to celebrate her promotion to High Commander of Mechanical Destruction within the Tundra's High Court of Kickassery, and their special guest doesn't seem to be willing to join in the celebration. Good thing there's a hulking machine for a butler sitting in the corner to beat some manners into his head. (Oneshot based off a Tumblr ask box prompt)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Commencement of the High Commander

**Author's Note:**

> I took the tea party idea waaay into left field. My head's in a really weird place right now okay? Getting some of that violence out definitely helped, though. Thank you to my Gaige for throwing me the idea of them having a tea party! The original post can be found here: http://tinathebunkermaster.tumblr.com

Everything was meticulously set up and in its exact place: the buzzard teapot was steaming with a fresh batch of her favorite honey brew in the center of the table, three moving frames surrounded by dapper-looking weapons of fiery destruction at the edges of the large, square table. Tina sat at the head with a very proud look on her face, a grease-smeared scrap metal tiara atop her head where her bandit mask usually sat. A familiar pigtailed redhead sat to her immediate right in a place of immense honor, sporting a smart-looking dark green sash covered in panel buttons and bottle caps. Both of them had a debonair lift to their chin, juxtaposing harshly against the crude implements that sat before them on the table and the borderline eerie appearance of the other guests.

The only other moving soul was at the opposite end of the table, strapped to the chair a certain Psycho had found himself in not too terribly long before his doomed wasteland compatriot. His rage-fueled muscles strained against the metal bars that kept him pinned to his seat, vicious snarls and flecks of saliva flying from his mouth as he twitched and tugged against his restrains with wide, feral eyes. The two girls opposite him seemed utterly ignorant to their guest's fruitless struggle, the smaller of the two rising to her feet with a wide sweep of her arms to address the metal-clad party before her with a loud, carrying voice that echoed across the flickering walls of the Tundra cavern. "Esteemed guests and dear friends, I would like to welcome you to the official celebration of Lady Gaige's commencement into the High Court of Kickassery! Allow me to open this wondrous occasion with a few kind words-"

Her grandiose introduction was cut short by a vicious string of expletives from the blood-smeared Bandit in front of her, his lips coated in a thin film of saliva as he spat across the table. "You little fuckin' maniac! I'll tear your heart out and eat it like a steak!"

How rude. Tina's nose wrinkled at the intrusion, arms folding across her chest as her features shifted to a most annoyed scowl. "Manners, Monsieur Batbrain. Deathtrap, would you be so kind as to give our guest a small taste of what happens when people at my parties do not obey common courtesy?"

The other female at the table waved her mechanical arm with an eager twitch of her fingers, a massive floating cube of metal floating out of a nearby corner where it had been waiting for a command from its master. The Bandit's eyes immediately locked onto the contraption as it drew closer, letting out a half-hearted cackle clearly meant to mask his growing anxiety as the machine raised a clawed hand to drop it across his head with a loud, resounding CRACK! before sinking back to its hiding space in the corner.

"Thank you, Deathtrap. Now, as I was saying... wait... what was I saying?" She turned down to the mechromancer on her right, offering her a quizzical twist of her head.

The girl responded with a cheery grin, nearly bouncing in her seat as she spoke. "You were just discussing how awesome I am and how we're gonna pwn a lot of ass together from now on!"

"Oh, riiight!" Tina's voice immediately regained its jeering jaunt as she turned toward the table again, clearing her throat with a clap of her grimy hands. "Today marks Lady Gaige's commencement into the title of High Commander of Mechanical Destruction, and I am honored to share this wonderful moment with you all, my dear friends! Now, without further ado-" Her hands clapped together again, reaching to seize the tea pot by its handle to raise it in the air. "Let us celebrate this joyous occasion with much joy and merriment!"

The Bandit across the table spoke up again as she turned to fill Gaige's tea cup, feet kicking against the compacted dirt under them. "The only thing I'm gonna celebrate is gettin' outta this chair and beatin' you to death with your own arms!" The cackle that rose from his chest echoed ominously across the otherwise silent cave, Tina's attention still focused on filling the various tea cups across the table like one of her guests hadn't just threatened to dismember and bludgeon her to death. Gaige on the other hand seemed to take the utmost offense to the second intrusion, eyeing the squirming, filth-covered man across from her with a wary, sharp glower. "Do we need to call in the Butler again to beat another round of manners into that thick skull of yours?" she snarled, mechanical arm raising in a silent threat to summon her war machine again.

Tina stopped her with a raise of her own hand, waving it airily as she filled the last tea cup before placing the pot back down on the cozy on the center of the table. "Leave him be for now, High Commander. He shall learn eventually. For now, we shall enjoy our party. Would you like a crumpet, Baron Von Smackabitch?" Her eyes turned to a large stuffed bear with a monocle over his remaining eye, a large artillery round stitched into his back with a dapper-looking (albeit grimy) tail coat covering the part that melded the two together. Something he said must have hit a nerve with the pyro, her eyebrows furrowing as she regarded the bear with a genuinely wounded glance. "Well, it seems that makes two of our guests with poor table manners," she shot back, flopping back into her chair with a huff.

Gaige shook her head. "Such terrible reciprocation of our host's hospitality," she clucked, reaching for her tea cup to take a sip as she looked over the top of the small container to a porcelain-faced doll with a strangely distended belly sitting in the left corner. "I agree wholeheartedly, Contessa. One might consider it a terrible offense to the kind lady who has gone to such great extents to make this party a smashing success." She replaced her tea cup on the small plate under it, turning to her blonde friend with a wide grin. "Do not fret, my gracious comrade. I already feel like a queen with such wonderful company and delicious tea."

The compliment seemed to assuage whatever wound the Baron's comment about her choice in pastries had inflicted, her expression flickering from one of anger to one of sheer delight like someone had flipped a switch in her brain. "Why thank you," she responded, bowing her head low toward the table as her companion let out a girlish giggle. "I brought out my special brew just for this occasion. I just knew you'd love it!" They both giggled in unison, reaching for their cups to clink them together before taking a synchronized sip with grunts of happy approval as Tina turned sharply to regard the doll Gaige had spoken to with a chortle. "Why, I'm flattered Contessa! Such high praise from you is an occasion to remember most definitely."

The two continued their high-class banter with the other guests at the table, purposely ignoring the furious Bandit on the other side as he continued to spit out vulgar threats and incoherent slurs about their parents. He wasn't the first to say such things at her tea table, and he certainly wouldn't be the last. In fact, the two girls across from him seemed perfectly content to nibble on their crumpets and babble about the recent weather changes in Sanctuary until he shouted at the top of his lungs once more, both their mouths stopping mid-sentence to gawk at him in unison. "You heard me!" he spat, glaring at them with a carnal raise of his hackles. "You're both fuckin' bonkers, and I'm gonna paint the walls with your brains before I feast on your carcasses!"

The guests of honor took a moment to regard each other with a perfectly mirrored look of shock, their hands lowering their tea cups to the table as Tina cleared her throat. "I do believe Mister Batbrain has crossed a line."

Gaige nodded fervently in agreement, brow knitting together as the faint line of a smirk traced itself onto her lips. "I wholeheartedly agree, dear Empress of Blowupyourfaceheim. Shall I summon the butler to deliver another lesson in table manners to his squishy little head?"

"You read my mind, High Commander." Tina's head turned over her shoulder, voice raising as she addressed the mechanical beast still hovering in his corner. "Oh Deathtrap, would you be ever so kind as to oblige our guest of honor?"

The monstrosity lurched to life once again at the request, hovering over to the now livid Bandit to drop a few more heavy claw strikes to his head until he was slumped forward in his chair, a trickle of blood running down his smooth, dirt-smeared head into his eyes. His lips were babbling something incoherent again, but his tone had dropped to a quiet mutter which seemed to satisfy the two girls across from him. "That will be all for now," Gaige called out, waving her metal hand before bowing graciously. "My thanks to you, Deathtrap."

The machine clanked back to its corner, both girls returning to their tea like they hadn't just watched a mechanical monster nearly beat a captive Bandit's brains in as Gaige's eyes flipped back to the offensive Baron. "Such things cannot be avoided, sadly," she remarked to some unheard comment, sighing under her breath with a lowered shake of her head. "Some people just don't learn."

Tina replied with a passive shrug of a shoulder, reaching up to grab another crumpet from the plate nearest to her. "You would think a fifty-pound claw to the skull would at the very least teach him proper grammar. Ah, well. So it goes, I suppose."

The conversation returned to lighthearted banter for several more minutes, both girls throwing themselves into a giggling fit at the Contessa's admission to feelings for a certain shoe maker who could not attend the ceremony before turning to each other to banter absently with the Baron's wife's recent change of the linens in their estate. "Ugh, I cannot believe she put purple with green!" Tina exclaimed during a moment of calm between the Bandit's unintelligible slurs, turning to Gaige with a disgusted wretch who immediately returned the sentiment. "Slag accents are sooo last season."

Gaige polished off her cup of tea, rising to seize the tea pot and refill her cup before topping Tina's off. "I've heard that Maliwan colors are coming back into fashion," she quipped, replacing the tea pot on its cozy before nestling back down into her seat. "Yellow and blue are going to be all over the place this season."

Tina opened her mouth to express her disdain but was cut off by a red-tinted projectile from the Bandit's mouth as it flew over the table and landed with a rather loud plop on the remaining pile of crumpets Gaige had been reaching for. "Fuck fashion! I'm gonna wear your skin as a coat! Oooohohohohoh, I'm gonna make you cry for your mommies as I skin you alive and walk to Sanctuary wearin' your hides as a new statement to your fuckin' fashion! Maybe I'll even set a new trend!"

They fell silent again, a dark flash crossing their features like a bolt of lightning as they glared down into their tea cups. "It would seem a line has been crossed," the younger of the pair quipped under her breath, her tone losing all semblance of the jovial chatter that had carried the party thus far. "I have said nothing to your threats, and passive written off your threats to my deceased parents. But I will not... I repeat, I will NOT!-" The last word came out as a harsh, gravelly shout, her voice carrying across the cavern walls as she rose sharply to her feet to glower at the Bandit with a downright murderous cut of her eyes. "STAND BY WHILE YOU INSULT FASHION. YOU, SIR, HAVE CROSSED A LINE!"

The outburst drew a wider grin from her companion's lips as she stared forward at the still frantically struggling man, keeping their eyes locked as she spoke to Tina in a purposely calm voice. "Empress of Blowupyourfaceheim, I do believe it's time our friend takes his leave."

Tina nodded as she flopped back into her seat, throwing an arm casually over the back of her chair as she raised her cup to her lips to take another sip. "We are of one accord, High Commander."

The two shared a brief look before nodding, both sets of eyes returning to the bandit as Gaige raised her free hand back to the corner to twitch her fingers forward. "Deathtrap... kill."

It was all over for the Bandit. His expletive-laced pleas fell upon deaf ears and passively amused eyes as the machine moved back toward the table, carrying out the order from its master with several heavy, hydraulic-powered smashes of its claw until the Bandit slumped over in his shackles and fell silent. The two watched on as he screamed himself to silence, sipping at their tea cups as they watched on without a single word between them. 

Blood stained the table cloth in faint, spattered trails from the bone-crushing impacts when it was all over, vermilion and chunks of soaked matter dripping from the monster's arm as it silently slumped back to its corner when its job was done. Tina rose from her seat with a calmness that most would consider eerie, seizing the plate of crumpets his bloody projectile had landed on and raising the only stained one as she rounded the table toward the now stone-still maniac. She remained silent as she picked the crumpet up off the plate, plopping it into the sizable hole the machine's arm had made in his skull before turning back with the same cheerful grin to offer the rest to her guests.

"Would anyone care for a crumpet or a refill while I am up?"


End file.
